First Pumpkin ale.

[oscarman]

First time using pumpkin in a beer, was so satisfying. The amount of grain was ridiculous though.



Imperial Roasted Pumpkin Porter:

Ingredients:

Malt
6kg - Pale Ale Malt
540g - Crystal 60
370g - Crystal 120
370g - Black Malt
240g - Roasted Barley

Hops
20g - Northern Brewer @ 60mins
20g - Fuggles @ 30mins
15g - East Kent Goldings @ 15mins

Other
1kg - Roasted Pumpkin
1/4 tsp - Nutmeg
1/2 tsp - Cinnamon
5 whole cloves

Yeast
Safale S-04, 1 Litre starter, made the night before.

19 litres, SG 1.072

Use 800g of the pumpkin in the mash, and 200g at 30 minutes in the boil.

Take a cup of the boiling wort at about 30 mins and add your spices, taste it and make sure it's not too overpowering as the flavours will increase in the finished beer. And if not, you can always add more later, it's better than ruining it.

Tastes amazing from the fermenter, really strong pumpkin taste, maybe not enough of a spice taste, but i'll wait till it dries out a bit. It will be interesting to see if the pumpkin sweetness gets fermented out. How does this differ from other peoples pumpkin ales?

Definitely can't wait to get out of BIAB though, it's good for a while, but sometimes it's such a pain. Getting a 45L mash tun this evening! Can't wait.

 

[lukiferj]

One thing I have done a few times is boil up a "spice tea" and chuck that in the fermenter towards the end of fermentation to up the spice flavour. Similar to what some do with a hop tea.

 

[Mebelogan]

I added cinnamon at about 30 mins then put nutmeg ginger and all spice in for second fermentation.
Also I put all of the pumpkin in for the whole boil. Bottled it today still got some pumpkin sweetness and just
Enough spice. Hopefully should be good to test in a couple weeks.
I put about 2tsp of each spice in altogether

 

[mr_wibble]

How did you cook the pumpkin?
Oh, and what sort of pumpkin ?

I sometimes make pumpkin pasta (sauce). Roasting the pumpkin chunkies to the point of browning in the oven first makes a huge difference to the flavour.

 

[Mebelogan]

Yeah I roasted mine in the oven just with the skin on till it started to brown then took the skin off and put it all in a grain bag
I used Kent pumpkin but might try butternut pumpkin next time

I've just put some in the fridge so they should be right to try next week will let you know how it tastes

 

[jacknohe]

I roasted pumpkin once. I also tried the legit American canned pumpkin (unspiced) used for making pumpkin pie and that was Orsum! A lot less effort.

 

[Mebelogan]

Where did you get the canned pumpkin?

 

[pressure_tested]

I want to use canned pumpkin after seeing dogfish head doco. Gotta get brewing soon!

 

[jacknohe]

This was the stuff I used:

http://www.usafoods.com.au/s.nl/it.A/id.9178/.f

I used 2 x 822g cans in my 20L brew. Fantastic stuff. I actually picked them up while I was in the USA. You can order it from this site but its a little pricey.

 

[Mebelogan]

Cheers for that might look into it next time

 

[Truman42]

@oscarman...I assume the mash pumpkin is thrown in loose with the grain? If so what size chunks did you use or is it better to mash It all up first in a blender?

And is the pumpkin in the boil put into a grain bag and used like a hop sock, or did you throw it into the kettle loose?

Always wanted to do a pumpkin ale and originally was going to do a brown Ale style like dogfish head, but I think a porter style would probably do nicely.

 

[tazman1967]

Pumkin Ale is on the cards... bring on the recipes

 

[pressure_tested]

Look up Norrhern brewer smashing pumpkin ale
also this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTdBV3yvYm8

 

[jacknohe]

Here's mine. Absolute winner with many friends. Admittedly more women prefer this than men... ;-)

The Pacific Hallertau added a faint buttery note that complimented a mild pumpkin flavour. Wonderful!

Recipe: 13-08 Jack's Lantern (Pumpkin Ale)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 26.49 l
Post Boil Volume: 23.09 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 20.00 l   
Bottling Volume: 19.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 14.8 EBC
Estimated IBU: 22.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 77.7 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
4.320 kg              Pale Malt, Ale (Barrett Burston) (5.9 EB Grain         1        90.0 %        
0.288 kg              Crystal Malt - Pale (Thomas Fawcett) (10 Grain         2        6.0 %         
0.192 kg              Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (3.9 EBC)   Grain         3        4.0 %         
1644.00 g             Pumpkin, Canned (Mash 90.0 mins)         Other         4        -             
10.0 g                Green Bullet [13.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min   Hop           5        19.6 IBUs     
15.0 g                Pacific Halertau [4.40 %] - Boil 20.0 mi Hop           6        3.3 IBUs      
4.00 g                Brew Brite (Boil 10.0 mins)              Fining        7        -             
8.00 g                All Spice (Boil 5.0 mins)                Spice         8        -             
6.00 g                Cinnamon (Boil 5.0 mins)                 Spice         9        -             
3.00 g                Nutmeg (Boil 5.0 mins)                   Spice         10       -             
1.0 pkg               American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [124 Yeast         11       -             


Mash In           66.5 C        90 min        
Mash Out          75.6 C        10 min

 

[taztiger]

What's the verdict on the pumpkin porter, how did the flavours come up out of the bottle?

 

[pressure_tested]

anyone ever add whole spices to the boil in a hop bag? Considering doing it this weekend. Hard to work out the quantities as most recipes use about 1-2 teaspoons of dried or crushed spices.